Avenue
by TierneyMacDonald
Summary: Scenes from the three years between a separation and a reunion. An addition to The Dangers of Buying Birthday Presents.
1. Chapter 1

The Phantom of the Opera had never been to London.

The Angel of Music, when he deserved the name, had never left Paris. The Devil's Child, dragged throughout Europe, little more than a prisoner, never went on mocking display in any town or city off the European mainland.

Erik Durham nee Destler didn't quite loathe London, but he wasn't quite sure if he enjoyed it. The sounds and colours and mannerisms of the modern city didn't quite fit, like a coat too short in the arms. But Erik shrugged London over his shoulders and straightened his spine and treated the city like the Opera House he missed; a place to explore and memorize, so when the time came, he could perform and hide as well as the rest of them. To make the city believe he belonged.

His little Illusionist would have been proud.

He hadn't known he was in London, not at first. Not in the moment when he stepped through the mirror and Kayla's hand evaporated in his as they walked into the shadows.

The shadows faded into a hallway, and when he looked around, Erik sat in a lineup of both men and women, many of whom looked much younger than he did, and more comfortingly just as nervous. Fingers tapped on black cases, sheaves of music scores rustled, toes tapped on gleaming tiles. The chair he sat in was much too small for him.

A petite young man across from him glanced up from his scuffed violin case. The young – boy, he was little more than a boy – man's eyes darted across Erik's face briefly, but he quickly met Erik's gaze again and smiled, his eyes crinkling before he looked back down at his instrument. Over the boy's head, Erik saw himself in the mirror.

His scarred face was uncovered.

Erik dropped his head and clamped his eyes shut.

No mask.

No protection.

No Kayla.

He shook that thought away like cobwebs. Breathe. In, two, three, four, hold for two, three, four, five, six, seven, exhale to eight. He pictured Kayla's magic box and the little square drawing rising and sinking inside it. Breathe. Repeat.

Erik opened his eyes back onto his lap. Sheets of music, too neat to have been handwritten, were stacked on top of his thighs. As he flipped through them, he recognized the composition; it was the curved marks were familiar, his own, but not in his handwriting. His pants, black, looked not unlike what he would have worn in Paris, but the cuffs of his shirt were a glossy, raven's wing black that caught the light, and pinned with tiny gold roses.

He cursed under his breath.

"Mood," muttered a voice.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the woman next to him glance back, grinning down at the sheaves of messily annotated music in her own hands. She nodded at him. "Waiting before auditions is a mental shitshow. Pardon my French."

Her voice was smooth, relatively low, but cut with a lilting accent that Erik was only vaguely sure was Scottish. Accent or not, she had the voice of an alto, likely a talented one.

He didn't know exactly what she was referring to, but the tone was so like Kayla's complaints that he nodded back.

"Miss Emberley!" A lanky man appeared in the door at the end of the hallway. He consulted a thin tablet, presumably a device similar to Kayla's magic box, judging by the information he seemed to be reading off of it. "Anika Emberley, MA, viola."

The woman next to him rose, lifting her viola case off the ground by her feet. "Best 'a luck," she said, nodding at him again before she raised her hand and followed the lanky man through the door.

One by one, his inadvertent companions vanished from the hallway.

The young man across from him was the last to depart, to the summons of "Liam Yao, MFA, violin."

"Break a leg," he whispers, holding up two thumbs as he scurries down the hall towards the man with the tablet.

Erik, at the frantic insistence of the Phantom, almost fled. He was half out of the tiny, matchwood-like chair when the man stuck his head out one last time. "Erik Durham, PhD, piano and organ?" The young man's smile was wide, disarming, seemingly more relaxed and now as friendly as one of Kayla's many stage rats. He couldn't have been much older than her, either. His accent rolled, chipper, less musical than French, but not as staccato as British, nor as rumbling as the girl named Emberley. "Come on in, Mister Durham. Sorry about the wait. You're the last one."

Erik rose, the sheaf of music trembling slightly in his hands. He caught the briefest flash of dark hair in the mirror before he quickly averted his gaze and walked down the hall.

The man waited without even the slightest trace of fear or curiosity as he looked Erik dead in the face and beamed. "Not too many doctoral auditions today, and you're probably the most anticipated interview on the docket, if you don't mind me saying." He led Erik down a short passage, to a massive set of double doors with a glossy bronze plaque. Pushing the door open, the man poked his head in. "Mr. Durham for you, ladies and gentlemen." He held the door open for Erik. "Straight in. Good luck, Mr. Durham."

The door creaked shut behind him.

As Erik stepped cautiously further into the room, another selection of strangers surveyed him from a table by the window. Two men and two women shuffled through papers as Erik walked towards them.

A new man leapt up from his highbacked chair. "Mr. Durham, I presume?" His vocal intonations sounded like the poshest of British aristocracy, but his smile was gleeful as he bounced around the corner of the table, grabbing Erik's hand and shaking it vigorously. "Dr. Clarence Hornby. It's a genuine pleasure to meet you in person."

Erik had enough awareness to squeeze his hand and shake up, down, separate. "Thank you, sir." Erik's throat rasped, his voice broken to his own ears, like it was filled with sand.

"Please take a seat, Mr. Durham!" He gestured Erik into a chair as he hurried back behind the table. "These are my committee colleagues, Dr. Lisa Shu, Dr. Darian Patek, and Dr. Maeve O'Clair." Each stranger nodded as Hornby introduced them. "Now, Mr. Durham, we have all read your application and listened to your recordings. I really feel I must speak on behalf of the whole committee when I say that we were all quite impressed. Before we send you through to the audition, we just wanted to have a brief chat about the partnership you will be embarking on with us."

Was this how Kayla felt? Being in an unfamiliar environment, out of time, out of place, where no one can now who you truly are and where you came from?

A scream danced on the back of Erik's tongue. He swallowed it, burrowing deep into years of putting on a demanding, mysterious façade. He let his lips curl. "Yes, of course, Mr. Hornby."

They had questions for him, certainly. They also had information on him, on whomever they thought he was. Erik Durham, thirty-five. French but raised in Scotland. The Devil's Child had been illiterate; the Opera Ghost had learnt everything himself. Erik Durham had a university degree.

"Can you speak to your musical experience, Mr. Durham? Your composition degree, references, and assessment results from the University of Aberdeen are impressive, certainly. I was hoping you could speak to your background before that." He flipped through the pages scattered on the tabletop. "Your education up to your attendance at Aberdeen seems… unstructured, if not non-existent. I assume you were self-taught?"

_Self taught in archaic methods from a universe over a hundred years in the past. Thank you, monsieur, for your enquiry. _

The Phantom spoke. "I was quite… isolated, as a child. My family was, too be delicate, unpleasant when I was young. When I was removed from those circumstances, my new guardians were extremely artistically talented and encouraging of my budding interests. I was unprepared to access formal education. Children can be cruel, you understand." Lies crafted from truth. "My guardians were willing to allow me to pursue my own investigations in the years before university. I was able to develop my affinity for music, and had the resources available to attain mastery."

"And why the Royal Academy?" Dr. O'Clair leant across the table, steepling her narrow fingers. "Why pursue a doctorate?"

The Phantom paused.

Erik took over.

"I am no master. I can recognize that I have ability, and I can recognize that I have a wealth of knowledge that I would like to share." He pulled the edge of his vest down, briefly noting the swirls of ebony thread embroidered through the midnight black. He sighed inwardly but held Dr. O'Clair's stare. "I have more I must learn. I will likely never be satisfied with my own abilities, but I need to obtain enough knowledge and experience to help my students be satisfied with theirs."

Silence floated over the room like gossamer. It popped like a bubble when Dr. Hornby pushed back his chair and stretched across the table to wring Erik's hand again. "An absolute pleasure speaking with you, Mr. Durham."

"The audition is blind," Dr. Patek informed him. "We will not be assessing you, but we will be discussing your interview with the musical assessors before we formalize your acceptance."

Dr. O'Clair tapped her papers on the edge of the desk, straightening out the file labelled with Erik's new name. "Do you have any questions for us before your audition, Mr. Durham?"

Erik inhaled. "I do not. Thank you, Doctor." Erik rose and inclined his head. He forced his voice low, soothing, letting pleasantries flow from his lips like dark caramel, the soft, persuasive tone the Angel of Music perfected with Christine. "Doctor Hornby. Doctor Shu. Doctor O'Clair. Dr. Patek. I thank you for your time."

Doctor Patek sat up a little straighter, a little flush in his cheeks. Doctor Shu rose to shake his hand, and Doctor O'Clair returned his nod.

The lanky assistant appeared in a second doorway on the far side of the room.

Erik straightened his shoulders and walked.

When the young assistant shut the second door behind him, Erik gave himself nineteen seconds to breathe – in for four, hold for seven, out for eight – before he adjusted his music under his arm and stepped forward. He followed the path of dark burgundy carpet across the floorboards to the grand piano. To his left, a screen shielded the other side of the room.

Ah. His audience. Like justice, blind.

Erik pulled out the bench and sat gingerly, setting the sheets he knew for a fact he wouldn't need on the stand in front of him.

"You may begin," said a voice from behind the screen.

This was not his organ. A tiny flare of panic sparked to life in his chest.

He spread his fingers across the ivory keys and thought of Kayla's grin.

Liquid melodies flooded from the piano's lid, pooling around his ankles and lapping across the floor. Weaving up his calves and up his spine and across his scarred cheek. The sound reverberated off the walls, the notes rising like the steeples of Notre Dame, the steeples he'd only ever seen as a distant glow of candlelight and stained glass, beautiful but unreachable, like

But not like the young soprano who'd kissed him, reached him, spared him –

But it was not her face that shimmered at the edge of his vision, but the stage manager's –

Triumph and hope dripped through his fingertips, the melodies of his opera that no one had ever heard, that he thought no one _would_ hear, save an angel and a magician. Music rippled through his hands and spread across the keys. His eyes shut, the sounds engulfing him in waves. Pouring out of his chest, the melody of Don Juan Triumphant grew soft, gentle, beneath the smooth caresses of his hands.

As the waves slowed, the final notes drifting through the air, Erik opened his eyes, blinking against the droplets dancing on his eyelids. The final bars faded into oblivion, and he lifted his hands from the keys.

"Thank you," said the voice.

On the opposite side of the room, another door opened, and the assistant stuck his head in and waved.

Erik bowed silently to the screen, picked up his music, and followed the path of dusky carpet to the open door.

"Welcome back." The red haired Ms. Emberley patted the chair next to her as he found himself in a new hallway with the same group of musicians. He smiled gingerly and sat down.

They sat there in silence for an extraordinary amount of time before the lanky assistant appeared and started calling names again.

When it was his turn, he walked into another office, where Dr. O'Clair and another new woman waited. Dr. O'Clair held out her hand. "Congratulations, Mr. Durham. Welcome to the Royal Academy."

* * *

**Long time, no see, lads. For all you lovely humans still leaving reviews on _The Dangers of Buying Birthday Presents_, thank you. It means a lot.**

**More to come. **

**love Tierney **


	2. Chapter 2

Erik Durham didn't have a lair. The former Phantom of the Opera was, at the moment, lairless.

He was not enamored with that particular element of his current situation.

The Committee had apparently put him up in a not at all shabby apartment in the graduate dormitories for his audition. He didn't know if it was protocol or if his infamous "recordings" – whatever form of magic those took – were just that good.

Well, he _was_ the Composer. So even if he didn't know how recordings worked, he knew they must have showcased his skill, in some crude way.

Either way, he needed to vacate within a week, to give time for the real occupants to move in before the term began. The other students.

He was a student.

The thought was, in a word, surreal.

But such a word did nothing to alleviate the indisputable fact that he was homeless.

And that was why Erik, anxiety nipping at his heels like untrained dogs, marched over to first year Masters candidate Liam Yao, who was tuning his violin, dragged a chair in front of the younger man, and sat down.

"Mr. Yao, I have heard that you were looking for members of the cohort to share your flat." Erik rested his hands loosely on his knees, ignoring the Devil's Child's pleas to run, to hide, to find some deserted corner of the Academy basement and set up shop there as usual.

Liam's darting eyes, when the boy finally looked up, radiated an aura that Erik could describe only as flummoxed.

"Hi… yes. Yes, yes I was." Liam lowered his violin, the gleaming wood resting against the worn fabric of his denim trousers – jeans. They were jeans. "Erik. Durham. Right?"

Erik nodded.

"Organ and piano."

Erik nodded again. "Is there still room available in your flat for this year of study?"

Liam tapped his fingers, one at a time against the neck of his violin, eyes unfocused, his lips moving through a sequence of numbers. He rapped his bow, very lightly, on top of the music stand in front of him, the pages fluttering. "Yeah, sorry, still room. I was just… we've got a room left, yeah. Wait, me, Jack… Jesus H. Christ, who else – Patrick, but he's on exchange for the semester – oh, Eugene. So yeah, that's two rooms left."

The thought of living with five other people set the Devil's Child scrambling like a terrified animal against the barriers of Erik's mind.

Erik forced himself to relax his grip on his knees. His palms felt hot.

He was no longer that scared child. He had not been that scared child in years. He would not return to him now.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

This was London. He was a student. He had no other choice.

More importantly, he was the Angel of Music. If he was capable of anything, it was charming, pretending, and communicating – even if this would be of a different sort. He was capable of managing a new living situation with five fellow students.

Besides, he tried to convince himself, it would be easier to figure out how this new world worked if he was with other people. And easier to make mistakes in an environment where any of his old world quirks could be contributed to music student eccentricities. Easier if he was able to practice his new self on people with whom he had music in common.

"If it is not inconvenient, I would appreciate being considered for a place in the flat. Provided all current occupants are in agreement."

"So, uh." Liam tapped the bow of his violin on top of the music stand. "Would you. Uh. Mind? Living with a bunch of… You know. Babies?"

"You are a Masters scholar, are you not? You are an adult."

Liam tapped the end of his bow on top of his own head this time. "Well, yeah. But you're a post-doc. More –" He waved his hands absently in the air, like he was conducting an invisible orchestra. "More responsibility. Bigger role. Higher research."

"If I could not learn from those younger than me, I would be a poor scholar indeed."

"That's… refreshing." Liam's bow tapped against the boy's temple. He exhaled, then nodded. "Yeah, yeah… as long as you don't mind. We'd be happy to have you."

The Devil's Child pleaded, but Erik held out his hand.

Liam, after a brief pause, shook it, his grip firm. "Welcome to the Nightmare Flat, Mr. Durham."

"Erik, please, Mr. Yao."

"Erik, of course. Only if you call me Liam. Mr. Yao makes me feel like I'm about to get tenure. Oh my god, if we fill the flat, we're going to be able to afford groceries and rent." Liam raised his violin to his chin and played a lilting rift. "Imagine the luxury."

Erik, for the first time since he landed in England, laughed.

* * *

"So it's walking distance from the practice rooms. I don't know how we got this lucky to be honest. Patrick apparently knew one of the guys who graduated last year and he just happened to know another guy who – well, any way, crazy string of connections, and we have a flat. In walking distance. Of campus. In London. I really don't know how we pulled it off. But anyway, if you want, we can go through the campus and find all our classrooms. Orient ourselves. You know?"

Liam leant against the doorframe of Erik's new room as Erik set his small suitcase on the floor next to the desk.

"I don't know if that's even – you know – a thing people do. Go find all their classrooms, that is. I've just always done it. Find my classrooms the week before or so. So I don't freak out day of, and end up late and burst into class and have everyone stare at me. Do they even call them classrooms? In university? We're in university, essentially. God. We're in university."

Liam continued to babble as Erik straightened back up, looking slowly around the room. Golden light drifted through the narrow window, shadows from the tall buildings across the street slicing across the creaking floorboards. A wardrobe stood in the corner, wedged in the space between the foot of the bed and the wall. If he stood in the centre of the room, Erik could almost touch either wall. Paint peeled along the edges of the baseboards, the pale green wallpaper beginning to curl along the edges. It was small, modest, and light. The opposite of the wide-reaching, opulent dark of the lair.

"– well, we're in university _again_, I guess. At least I am. God, I didn't even ask you. I just assumed you had a degree before this, how utterly classist of me –"

"Orienting ourselves would be wise, Liam." Erik walked to the window and leant towards the glass, his hands resting lightly on the windowsill as he peered down at the automobiles rumbling through the street below. Fascinating. He had read about steam powered vehicles and of Siegfried Marcus's combustion engine vehicles back in 1870. The science had impressed him, but it was nothing like this. When he had asked Kayla, back in Paris, if he would see automobiles outside the Populaire in his lifetime, she had just shrugged and said she couldn't remember the exact date.

"_But probably_," she had said. "_It might have been the 1890's. Or something. I have no idea, if it's dates outside of art and theatre and shit I basically lose track._"

And she had pulled a paintbrush out of her bun and kept working on setbook pages, letting the lair drift into companionable silence.

A smile pinched at the corner of his mouth and he shut his eyes for a moment.

He could not think of Kayla now.

"I would be honored to tour the campus with you," Erik said when he felt composed enough to speak. "Merci, Liam."

"Aren't you Scottish?"

"I was born in France." The tips of Erik's fingers brushed against the pale green wallpaper along the edge of the window. The slightly rusted radiator beneath the sill coughed out a puff of warm air. "My guardians spoke French at home. I have an affinity for the language."

"Oh. Yeah, that would do it." Liam's shoes squeaked against the floorboards as the boy stood straight, hovering by the doorframe. "I'll let you – uh – get settled? That doesn't seem quite – I don't know – _grand_ enough for the occasion. Sorry. I'll leave you be for a bit." In the reflection of the glass, Erik watched Liam shuffle out of the room, and waited only a moment until the boy stuck his head back in again. "We're – uh – we were going to get takeaway. Later. Not sure from where. But we'll get enough for you. If – if you'd like to join us."

On the street below, a driver stuck her head out her window and waved furiously at a young man walking past on the sidewalk. The friends' delighted shouts reverberated through the thin glass, bouncing through Erik's fingertips.

Noisy and terrifying and friendly, in some strange way, this modern world.

It would be easy, very easy to be afraid.

But he was the Angel of Music. He knew how to charm. And he knew – at least until it was practiced enough to become real – how to _pretend_ to be in his element. And the Phantom could observe, plot.

So many years had been spent trying to craft the persona of the Phantom, the mask of the Angel, hiding the Child. Even being Erik Destler was a cloak of sorts, something he and Kayla had almost constructed.

He had done this before.

Erik Durham was just a body he had to inhabit, grow into, learn with.

He could do this.

He had to do this.

Erik turned to the door and smiled. "I would enjoy that, Liam. Thank you."

Liam grinned back and vanished again, the door creaking shut behind him.

Erik let his head sink into his chest, and took a long, deep breath.

He could do this.

The Phantom of the Opera knelt on the dusty wooden floor and started unpacking his suitcase.

* * *

On the other side of the Channel, Kayla Abbots slowly stretched her neck side to side.

"I think it stopped raining." On the other side of the cramped interns' office, Ishani rapped her knuckles against the rain streaked glass. "Bloody finally."

Kayla rubbed her temples, a yawn creaking through her throat. "Are we sure? It's probably a trick."

Dumi hopped to his feet, papers tumbling off his chest and onto the floor, and swept across the room to peer over Ishani's shoulder. "It's only partially stopped raining."

"Mate, shut up and let us have hope for once." In the corner of the room, Nick crumpled up his most recent energy drink and overhanded it into the recycling bin.

"He shoots, he scores," said Ishani dryly, still staring out the window.

"I saw a raindrop."

"Christ _above_, Dumi –"

Kayla glanced at the clock. 6PM. More than enough hours to go in the all-nighter they would probably have to pull to copyedit all the final course outlines she and the other interns were working on. At least until she had to report to the set workshop tomorrow morning to help with the framing for the new ballet they were staging this fall.

"Kayla, come look. Tell Dumi that it's not raining."

"Oh my god, kids." Kayla gave an exaggerated sigh and shoved back her chair. "Fine. I'll come look." Her shoes creaked on the worn floorboards as she crossed the narrow gap between their desks and squeezed behind Ishani's desk next to Dumi.

"Oh shit," said Nick. "Momma's here."

"Shut up, Nick." Kayla rested her chin on Ishani's shoulder and squinted through the glass.

Outside the window, pale light shimmered through mist draped over the city of Paris.

"It's pretty, in a way." Ishani leant her head against Kayla's. "I'd love some actual sun, though."

"We're interns," Dumi said, patting the top of Ishani's head. "We're not supposed to see the sun."

"Yeah, fair point."

Cars beeped as they sped through the puddles accumulating on the pavement of the Rue Auber far beneath, the street below gleaming and hazy like an oil painting.

"Well if we're not going to see the sun," said Kayla. "At least we get to not see the sun in _Paris_."

The other interns hummed in agreement.

"_À ta santé_," Nick muttered, cracking open another can of whatever energy drink he had stocked beneath his desk.

"Save the toasts till we're done editing," Ishani snapped.

Kayla laughed.

The Academie Nationale felt like home already.

* * *

**A couple snippets for you all. Thank you for the follows and favourites; it's so nice to see. I hope you're all staying safe right now.**

**love Tierney**


	3. Chapter 3

"Bienvenue! J'm'appelle Kayla, et je suis assistante d'enseignement et une interne à l'Académie Nationale et La Opera de Paris. Parle vous française?"

Most times, when Kayla gave this spiel as she started her student tours of the Palais Garnier, at least one person commented on her mildly Quebecois pronunciation. Some of the older cast and crew at the Garnier were, to be frank, condescending about it. Most of management was uncaring, either way, the occasional jabs stung a bit.

"Quebecois is the closest relative to seventeenth century French," she'd say, shrugging in the apologetically Canadian way she'd found useful among her colleagues. "It's vintage."

But Quebec accent or not, she was good at her job, and if the more old-fashioned staff couldn't respect her French, they had to respect her work. So Kayla lived with it.

The only person who got it worse than her for their French was Nick, the communications intern. He was proficient, but his Australian accent and tendency towards quick-speaking and excitability made even his English questionable at best.

Dumi and Ishani, on the other hand, were both elegantly fluent.

But none of the four newest program interns were French, and their group struggle made them all friendly almost immediately. That and their countless late nights and early mornings made them a tight group of loyal allies. Nick, from Melbourne. Dumi, from Durban, South Africa. Ishani from London.

The iron hinges on the wooden door squeaked loudly as Kayla shouldered into the attic office, her messenger bag bouncing against her hip. Wincing as she pricked her finger on the sharp pin of her nametag, Kayla shrugged off her cardigan and draped it over her arm.

"Morning, Ishani!"

Dusky golden light drifted through the circular window over Ishani's shoulder, sun crawling across the girl's dark hair. "Kayla!" Ishani raised her hand and pointed one finger at the plate balanced haphazardly on the corner of Kayla's desk.

Kayla nudged her hip against the arm of Ishani's chair as she squeezed between the narrow gap between their desks to hers, balancing the plate on top of her closed laptop as she slung her cardigan and her bag over the back of her chair and sat down. "Oh my god, Ishani." Pinching the edge of the pain du chocolat between her fingers, Kayla held it up to the ray of light streaming through the window. "This is an act of divine intervention." Pastry flakes clung to her fingers as she took a bite. "M'm'god."

"You're so very welcome." Blue light glimmered across Ishani's elegant cheekbones as she continued typing.

Kayla swallowed, brandishing the remaining pastry at Ishani accusingly. "Did you stay up late baking again for me, Chandra? You better be careful, or I'm going to have to ask you to marry me."

"Thanks so much, Abbots, but you know I don't go out with straight girls." Ishani clicked the keypad on her laptop and leaned back in her chair, the wooden legs groaning alarmingly. "How was the tour? Fall semester kids, Royal Academy Conservatory, right?"

"Do you have all the program schedules memorized? Or do you just know everyone who pops in from London?"

"I know everything. It was fine?"

"It was fine. Just showed them around, and dropped them off at their introductory seminar." Kayla took another bite of pastry, chocolate sticking to her teeth as she sat down at her desk. "This one guy – Pat, maybe – was a bit of a bastard about the Canadian French –"

"Always one of those."

"– but it was fine."

"I'm glad." The printer clattered to life in the corner of the room, and Ishani stretched her arms above her head as she swanned across the room to retrieve the documents. "Chambord dropped off some more seminar papers to mark."

"I'm a visual arts and theatre major. I'm the stage intern for god's sake. I feel like I'm underqualified to mark music theory papers."

"Dumi already marked them all."

"God bless Dumi. Where is he, anyway?"

"Agreed. The blessed man is sitting in on a composition class right now." Ishani tapped the edges of her paper on the edge of her desk until all the pages lined up straight. "Carmila's swinging by with essays on art history later though, so you can do those."

"As long as you use that pretty communications degree of yours to help me with any proofreading snags."

"I have an MA in French and English literature from Oxford." A stapler bit through the stack of paper neatly piled on Ishani's desk. "So don't blaspheme." Ishani set the stapler aside and sat down. "Communications," she scoffed, shaking her head.

"Hey!" Nick protested, appearing from under what Kayla had thought was an empty sweater draped over his desk in the corner of the office.

Thankfully she had previous experience with men popping up out of nowhere.

But she couldn't think about that.

"We can't all be in Communications and International Relations, Nick," Kayla said soothingly. "She doesn't mean it."

"I respect Communications students and their major, Nick. My disdain for communications is about you specifically." Ishani's mouth didn't even twitch.

Kayla was deeply jealous of Ishani's ability to deadpan her jokes.

Nick sighed dramatically. "You're lucky I'm so easy going, Ishani."

"You're not," Ishani countered mildly, leaning closer to her screen. "Royal Academy just got some _hot_ new doctoral candidates, Kayla. Seriously. They might not be my cup of tea but some of these men could get it."

Nick careened across the office and leant over the back of Ishani's chair. "Nice." He held up his hand, and Ishani high fived him without looking up.

Kayla made a non-committal noise in the back of her throat.

"Kayla, at least do yourself a favour and take a look."

"If I wanted to scroll through guys, I'd download Tinder." Kayla pulled open her laptop and opened a random document, her cheeks burning. It's not like she hadn't checked out any guys – if only from a distance – since she'd landed back at home in February. She'd finished up her third year of school, put her head down to get through the plays and set building she worked on over the summer, and now she was here, in Paris, working again. She hadn't dated, hadn't even attempted it.

She didn't have time for a fling.

And there _definitely_ wasn't any _other_ reason she wasn't actively seeking out guys.

Or downloading Tinder.

"Mate, if you're holding out for someone, they've got to be a, like, hot piece of ass, but you really should look at these PhDs." Nick tapped his fingers on the top of Ishani's laptop. "Like, if only for aesthetic value."

She ran the tips of her fingers over the ruby petals of the rose pendant hanging around her neck, taking a deep breath before she dropped the rose back against her chest. "I'm sure I'll survive. But thanks." Kayla stuffed the last bite of pain du chocolat into her mouth as a notification lit up her phone screen. "Carolyn summons," she said thickly.

"Tell Carrie I'd die for her," said Nick as he slunk back to his desk.

"Good luck." Ishani kept scrolling. "I'm auditing Madame Colette's ballet rehearsal tonight, if you want to come watch with me."

"Totally." Kayla slung her cardigan over her shoulders, snatching her work sketchbook and her keys out of her bag. "See you in a few."

She tugged hard on the brass doorknob, the wooden door swinging open quickly and squeaking again.

"Someday," said Nick wistfully, "we're going to figure out how to open that door without it screaming like a dingo."

"That'll be the bloody day," said Ishani.

Kayla waved and shut the door.

Sometimes, when she walked through the hallways of the offices in the attic of the Palais Garnier, anything from a creaking floorboard to a ray of sunlight could disorient her, sending her back, for a moment, to the Populaire. She'd pass an attic door and flash back to the giggles and shrieks of the ballet dorms. Light skating across the shimmering tiles in the lobby stopped her in her tracks, waiting, listening for Firmin's bluster and Andre's booming laugh, for a clap on the shoulder, an "excellent work, mademoiselle," or a request for new sketches. When she watched rehearsals, even when it was just the ballets, she'd find herself scanning the wings for Carlotta. For Avère, Leonardo, Gaelle. For Meg. When she worked on the sets, in the workroom and on the walkways and balconies above the stage, she'd look up, expecting to see Jamie, Clemens, Baptiste, all her boys from the stage crew.

The first time she'd walked into the ballet practice room, she'd seen a curly haired brunette and fainted. To be fair, Mariette really, truly looked like Christine from the back.

And the sight of gilded gold mirrors sent a shiver down her spine and a massive grin onto her face. At least until she remembered.

But today Kayla distracted herself with her phone as she walked through the halls and downstairs to the main suite of offices. She ground her teeth into the side of her tongue as she lifted her head and knocked on the door of the office that belonged to Carolyn, and certainly _not_ Firmin and Andre.

"Kayla, hello." Carolyn, her laptop on her knees as she sat on a couch by the window, gestured at an armchair next to her. "Come sit. Don't worry, it's nothing urgent."

Kayla grinned. "So I'm not fired, then?"

Carolyn laughed. "Of course not. Sit."

Kayla sat, curling her fingers under the edges of her sketchbook.

"I just wanted to let you know that your home institution approved the internship for credits towards your degree."

"Oh, really? That's fantastic, thank you!"

"I know we're only a month into the internship, but I wanted to talk to you about the potential next stages, now that we know your work will be contributing to your education. You will obviously have to return to Calgary next year to complete your degree, but have you thought about what your goals are following your graduation?"

Kayla tilted her head, her gaze drifting past Carolyn and out the window and into the bright blue sky as she considered the question.

She'd never liked people asking what she was planning on after graduation. But now, after two years – no, don't be silly, one year, because a year in 1870 didn't count – after _one_ year, she actually kind of had an answer.

"Well, I'm here for a year, then back in Canada for a semester to finish up my last couple courses, and after that…" Kayla shook her head, the corners of her lips curling up. "I thought I'd like to be working in theatre. Or ballet. And I think… I think I'd like to be in Paris."

It was the first time she'd said it out loud.

Even if this place disoriented her memories, echoes of people and places that didn't exit haunting her every step, she was herself her. It was part of who she was. This felt like home.

Carolyn smiled back. "Being back in Paris sounds like a promising plan."

* * *

"Erik!"

Kayla bolted upright at 3AM, one arm flinging out as she sat up. A glass shattered on the floor next to her bed.

"Kayla?" Ishani's sheets rustled and the lamp flickered to life on her side of the room. "Nightmare, love? Hell, that's a lot of glass. I'll go get a broom." The other girl padded out of the room, her shadow snaking beneath the door as she headed out into the common room and towards the kitchen.

Kayla pressed her forehead against her bent knees, swallowing back a sob. Erik's silhouette flickered behind her eyelids, and she snapped her eyes open again. Crawling out of bed, she knelt on the floor and started gathering up the biggest pieces of glass.

Ishani's footsteps creaked against the floorboards. "Hey. You're alright, yeah? Keep breathing." She held a paper bag open, and Kayla blindly slipped the pieces of broken glass inside. When they'd gathered up the larger pieces, Ishani held the dustpan while Kayla swept up the remaining pieces.

They went out to the kitchen together to throw the glass away.

Ishani pulled two mugs out of the cabinet and flicked the button on the electric kettle. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Kayla pressed the heels of her hands against her temples. "I don't really know how."

Ishani tore open two chamomile tea bags and put them in the mugs as the kettle boiled. Steam curled around her wrists as she poured the water and carried the mugs over to the table, setting one in front of Kayla. "I used to have nightmares about one of my exes. Clara. Like, not even scary ones. Just, unsettling, you know? We'd be just, on a date or something, and – you know those dreams where you can't turn on the lights? When you know that the lights are the only things keeping it from being a legit nightmare? I'd be on a date with Clara in this stupid dream, and all the lights would go out on us. Scared the shit out of me, even if it wasn't bad. And I wasn't dating her anymore, she'd just, like, guest star in my stress dreams."

Kayla run a thumb along the edge of the grey ceramic, heat licking at her skin. "He's not really an ex." She fiddled with the paper tab hanging off the end of the teabag. "We – we weren't really together."

"Well that sounds like bollocks. Your voice got all soft and sweet. You have feelings for the guy, at least. You're dreaming about him." She lifted her mug, resting her elbows on the table.

Kayla's throat tightened, and she wrapped her hands around her mug. "We – he was in love with someone else. For a long time. We were friends."

Ishani took a sip of tea.

The clock on the wall next to the fridge ticked rhythmically as the hands circled. "I was more into him than I admitted, I think." A headache pressed against the inside of her forehead, and Kayla shook her head. "No, that's a lie. I told him I loved him. And then – I don't even know how to explain it. We got separated, I guess. We – we didn't have a chance to be together." Kayla's first sip of tea burnt the tip of her tongue, and she winced.

Ishani tapped her nails on the edge of her mug thoughtfully. "And you haven't talked to him?"

Kayla shook her head.

Reaching across the table, Ishani wrapped a hand around Kayla's wrist. "You should try to see if you can talk to him. For your sake, at least, yeah?"

Kayla sniffled and nodded, trying to smile. Ishani squeezed her hand, and they finished their tea in silence.

Long after Ishani's breath evened out, Kayla lay in her bed, staring at the ceiling, wide awake.

* * *

**At midnight, the muse gets angsty, apparently. Stay safe, everyone.**

**-Tierney**


End file.
